... however, that he thought it was wise of the church to encourage public discussion, regarding the political participation of churchgoers. The idea of creating religious-based parties did not receive such a warm response from representatives of Jewish and Islamic groups who took part in a round table hosted late last week by RIA-Novosti. “I don’t support the creation of a Jewish religious party. We don’t need another Bund,” said Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, referring to the Jewish Socialist...

Militants fighting to carve an Islamic state from Russia's southern flank should avoid attacks on citizens now that they are protesting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule. Militants fighting to carve an Islamic state from Russia's southern flank should avoid attacks...

... 2005, yesterday called the sanctions against Iran "counterproductive." "Methods of economic pressure and coercion are totally unacceptable," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday. "The economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran have nothing to do with nuclear nonproliferation and will only cause harm to the country's economy and ordinary people." Trade Capital Bank is Belarus's 12th-largest lender with about 1.9 trillion Belarussian rubles ($224...

... Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces. Muhtorov, who goes by several other names, was indicted on charges of providing and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Prosecutors allege he planned to fight for the Islamic Jihad Union, which has been blamed for suicide attacks in Uzbekistan and claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. An FBI affidavit said the group also carried out simultaneous suicide bombings of the...

... immigrants who grew up after the demise of the Soviet Union and do not know the Russian language is rising. Over half of the immigrants confess that their command of Russian is insufficient to fill in the basic documents. Other fault lines are based on the Islamic-Orthodox difference between migrants and Russians and the rural-urban contradictions that have become manifest in almost any interaction between the two groups in large and medium-sized cities. Popular discontent with immigration used to take...

... fill this spot. China is out of the question because inflating tensions with its neighbor is too dangerous. On the contrary, as the recent UN Security Council veto on Syria showed, China can be a valuable Russian ally to help defy the United States. Islamic radicalism is also not an option because that would throw a match into its own North Caucasus tinderbox. But attacking the United States is much safer. It is far away, and Washington usually just ignores the bluster about U.S. plots as they do...